The use of lots is mentioned frequently in the Old Testament; at first over the scapegoat, as described in Lev. 16:8; then in the division of the holy land, Num. 34:13, and, with supernatural results, at the detection of Achan, Josh. 7:14, 18, and Jonah 1:7; also in the division of the priests into their orders, 1 Chron. 24:1‒5. The term for “lot” in the Latin is _clerus_, and the persons chosen to any priestly office, or set apart by due ordination to the service of God, in the Christian church as a body, are called the “clergy,” declarative of the fact that their possession of or appointment to the sacred office is by divine decision, as was always supposed to be the case in the ancient priestly appointment by lots. PENTECOST. =3. The next annual feast= took place on the fiftieth day after the Passover and was called Pentecost, the Greek word for the fiftieth. It was called the Feast of Weeks, Deut. 16:10, also the Feast of Harvest, Exod. 23:16, or of the Firstfruits, Num. 28:26. It lasted but one day, and upon that day two loaves of the first wheat were offered at the Temple. The festival now called Whitsunday was suggested by this festival. When the time for this feast arrived there was at Jerusalem a remarkable gathering which shows to what extent the Jewish nation had already been scattered over the world. There were visitors from Parthia, Media, and Elam, from 600 to 700 miles on the east; from Mesopotamia, about 400 miles on the northeast; from Cappadocia, 500 miles on the north and midway between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea; from Pontus lying on the Black Sea; and from that part of Asia Minor then called “Asia.” This last mentioned district, although it afterward gave its name to the whole vast continent, at this time comprised only the extreme southwestern parts of the peninsula, such as Caria and Lydia and a part of Mysia, its chief city being Ephesus. This was in after times the region of the “seven churches” of Revelation.[180] There were gathered Jews from Phrygia and Pamphylia, 500 to 600 miles off towards the northwest, the former on the high tableland and the latter on the low seacoast southeast. They were there from Egypt on the southwest, and from Libya and Cyrene, 400 miles west of the Nile, on the African coast, and from Rome, nearly 1,500 miles to the northwest; also from the island of Crete, 600 miles west by north, and from Arabia on the southeast. =4. It was upon the occasion= of this great gathering to Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost that Peter exhibited the beginning of that remarkable Christian courage, knowledge, and endurance which characterized him ever after. He was now not only the orator, but the able Christian expositor of the prophets and of the Psalms. The general outline of his address at this time is given us in Acts 2:14‒40, but the effect was so great that 3,000 came out publicly and were baptized on that one day.